I am just looking for some quick advice to see what people think. I am running an old Intel Quad core (Q9300) and a newer Nvidia GTX560 with 4GB DDR2 Ram and a SSD on Windows 8.

I mainly game on Guild Wars 2, Shogun 2: Total War and Civilization V.

I was thinking of just buying an upgrade pack (CPU, MB and RAM) as it is probably the components lacking but not sure if I really need it as most of the games above play fine. I do find Guild Wars 2 to be very CPU heavy and I can't quite play on max due to the AA and filtering etc.

I've been using this page for ideas: http://www.legendpc.co.nz/desktop-pc-upgrade-kit-xidg36366.htmland the i7 is only around $600 or could I just got for an i3 at around $300 or would neither offer a large improvement over the Q9300?

In terms of CPU power I suspect even an i3 would be faster than what you have now, but an i5 or i7 is more what you'd want for very good performance. I probably wouldn't bother upgrading to the i3 really, but check real world performance on toms hardware or similar.

noc: I wouldn't suggest getting an i3 if your finding that your current Quad Core is finding your current games hard work. But I would suggest increasing your amount of RAM :)

I wanted to upgrade the RAM but DDR2 is so expensive so figured if I was going to, just do the whole system.

timmmay: In terms of CPU power I suspect even an i3 would be faster than what you have now, but an i5 or i7 is more what you'd want for very good performance. I probably wouldn't bother upgrading to the i3 really, but check real world performance on toms hardware or similar.

On Toms Hardware they used an i7 for GWs2 max, looking at the prices the i7 isn't much more than an i5.

bfginger has a good point. But then again, with new chips coming out later this year, that means that current gen chips should go down in price even more. So maybe a better i7 could be an option for you

If you need an upgrade NOW, get the best bang for buck NOW. If you wait for the new stuff you'll never get ahead as technology is constantly improving. There's always something better just a few months away. If you don't need to upgrade now, wait until you do and buy the best bang for buck that's available at that time.

I think that has stopped being the case with CPUs because Intel is now following a predictable development cycle for their desktop products. After Haswell's released they're unlikely to make any user-noticeable improvements for another two years. Competitive drivers aren't the same as they were in the 1990s. Intel's far more worried about ARM replacing them than AMD eating their lunch with an ultra GHz T-bird.

bfginger has a good point. But then again, with new chips coming out later this year, that means that current gen chips should go down in price even more. So maybe a better i7 could be an option for you

I think that will depend on AMD, because they might just release Haswell at high prices and wait a few months for Ivy Bridge inventory to clear and then charge for Haswell what Ivy Bridge was, if AMD is still uncompetitive.